


Mirrors that reflect my love

by LilibethSonar



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Compliant, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2019-09-27 04:39:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17155481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilibethSonar/pseuds/LilibethSonar
Summary: A thought shoots through Rey, then, and she knows it’s unrealistic, knows it’s her trauma talking, but her stomach drops regardless.What if Ben’s already left.He hasn’t even unpacked all of his boxes yet. Loading them all in his car really wouldn’t take that much… time._________________________________A collection of various reylo ficlets.





	1. Stomping along the riverside

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to post my stress-relieving self-indulgent ficlets here. Most of them are going to be unbetaed - beware (and please do tell me if you find a really bizarre typo).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU

Stomping along the riverside, angry music in her earbuds and the city lights winking sympathetically at her from the opposite shore, Rey considers not going back to her place at all. She could crash at Rose’s, or at Finn’s, or go to a motel if Finn and Rose are spending the night together. Sure, it’s _her_ place, but Ben has to be there by now; it’s been a while since he’s stormed off from their absolute fucking mess of a date. And, well, Ben lives with Rey, they— they life _together._ Where else would he be?

It’s a late Saturday night and there’s a storm in the forecast.

If Rey goes home, she’ll have to… deal with stuff. To decide whether to talk to Ben or to ignore him. To try and sleep in the bed that smells like him but is cold and lonely (he’s too pissed; there’s no way he’ll come to bed tonight).

Rey stops near the water and fumbles with her phone. Should she call him, give him a heads up? Yeah, she should. They’ve been _such_ assholes to each other. No matter how angry she is, Rey doesn’t want to hurt Ben further.

Her well-meaning intentions, however, are in vain because her dumb phone dies right in her hand, submerging the world in vacuum following an abruptly silenced song. What she really _should_ do is stop using random cables with her charger. Muttering a curse, Rey puts her phone back in her jeans’ back pocket. Mud by the water is starting to suck her boots in. The air smells of rain and water lilies.

Oh, whatever. She’ll go. Ben’s probably already asleep anyway, curled up on the couch. A thought shoots through Rey, then, and she knows it’s unrealistic, knows it’s her trauma talking, but her stomach drops regardless.

What if Ben’s already _left._

He hasn’t even unpacked all of his boxes yet. Loading them all in his car really wouldn’t take that much… time.

Rey swallows. This is stupid. Yet when she turns towards their home, she walks faster.

And faster.

And faster.

 

*

 

Unlocking the front door frantically, Rey stumbles over the threshold and nearly bumps into Ben who’s balancing on one foot, struggling to put his right sneaker on without unlacing it. The sight would’ve kicked the air from her lungs has she not been out of breath from running up the stairs. But before Rey’s able to react, her eyes catch on a splotch of color in Ben’s hand. He’s holding her yellow windbreaker by its hood.

“You’re here,” she hears Ben say as her panic dies down, leaving a sour taste on her tongue. Awkwardly, he straightens up and lifts Rey’s windbreaker. “I couldn’t reach you, and there’s a storm coming, so I thought I’d go meet you.” Then Ben looks at her, really looks at her, noticing her muddy boots and heaving chest. “What happened?” he asks in a carefully controlled voice.

Rey shakes her head wordlessly and steps closer to him, gripping the hem of his sweater. He doesn’t seem to mind, in turn running his fingers down her forearms and taking her hands in his. Rey’s windbreaker is on the floor, forgotten. Her hands were cold before and now they aren’t.

“Please, tell me?” Ben’s breath tickles her temple, familiar faint traces of cigarette smoke and mint in it.

“It’s nothing, I just…. I freaked out and ran here because I couldn’t stop thinking that you might not… be here when—” There’s a lump in her throat.

“Where else would I be…?” As Ben connects the dots, the look in his eyes turns from puzzled to raw — but also warm and liquid. “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs into the crown of her head.

There isn’t much to say. They’re still holding hands, and the mud from her boots is all over the floor including her windbreaker and Ben’s sock because he has only one sneaker on. Rey knows he’d never hurt her like that because Ben knows _her,_ and loves her, and knows that she knows it.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” she sighs into his shoulder.

“Me, too. I acted like an immature dick.”

“M-m. Well, I acted like an immature b—”

“Boob?”

Rey snorts, startled. This is _not_ the word she was going for, but the mental image — or all those happy hormones her brain has released in the last couple of minutes — soon has her in tears from laughter. Ben is laughing, too, holding her, holding her, holding her.

At last, they move away from the front door. The storm is raging outside, and the power goes out, but they light candles and find extra quilts in the closet and a bottle of red in the kitchen.

Everything is well.


	2. Hold that thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canonverse

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” Rey hurls it at Ben, standing over him with her lightsaber still ignited. She’s so angry the rocks beneath his back vibrate with it — or are those last tremors of the dying battle?

“You’d like to do it yourself, I take it,” Ben snaps, and he’s only half-sarcastic; he’d look up at her but he has a glowing white plasma beam perilously close to his face. Rey really did a great job fixing that saber. He can’t take his kriffing eyes off of it.

“Shut up and answer the question!”

“Uh….”

He’s not. He hasn’t been. Ben has had to stay alive to undo Kylo Ren’s deeds. But now that it’s done and the First Order is falling — in places, quite literally — his survival is… optional. That’s the answer Ben settles for.

Rey kicks him in the shin (he can’t feel his limbs very well, but it’s a solid kick).

“So you decided to pull a Skywalker and face an army?”

Ben huffs and winces. He tastes copper. “It wasn’t an army. Merely a division of storm—”

 _“Doesn’t matter.”_ The plasma beam disappears, and without its steady hum Rey’s voice wavers.

Tears are running down her face, and Ben is mesmerized by them.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” She sniffs, wiping her nose with her arm wrap. Ben’s heart swells.

“You helped anyway.”

“But what if I wouldn’t make it here in time? What would happen then, Ben?” she chokes out, sinking to her knees near him.

Ben’s at a loss. “You’d be free of the bond…?” he tries.

“Oh, I _will_ kriffing kill you!” Rey exclaims as her hands fist in the front of his holey, bloody tunic. “I’ll tend to your wounds, and then I will!”

“Will you?” A stupid grin is tugging at his lips.

 _“Yes._ Now try to sit up, okay? Can you walk if you lean on me? I’m too drained to Force-drag you, you know….”

“Can I kiss you?” he blurts out, suddenly barely hearing her over his wild heartbeat — he lost so much blood, how is it still beating — but listening for the slightest gasp from her all the same. None of it feels real, and if it isn’t, if he’s seeing his last blissful dream on the brink of death, he might as well make the best of it.  

“Stop it, Ben, you’re not going to die,” Rey says with a teary hiccup before bringing their lips together for a short, electric kiss. It’s perfect — and not enough.

He can’t speak anymore because his teeth are clattering. The day is bright, but he is so cold.

But maybe she’s right. She must be, for Ben’s pretty sure drawing his last breaths wouldn’t go with wanting to tackle Rey to the ground in order to kiss her better.

“Hold that thought for later.” She’s tugging him into a sitting position, and Ben finally grabs her shoulder for support. And, oh, he will hold that thought.

He will hold Rey in his arms.

He will hold on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take prompts! :D Send them my way and get a ficlet.  
> (No rape or MCD tho; smutty stuff is okay but I can't promise I'll pull off kinky or very explicit one.)


	3. Gray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canonverse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ addictedtoacertainlifestyle, it's not about cutting hair, per se, and they aren't old, but I came up with this thanks to those two promts. Maybe you'll like it, too? :3

This reprieve won’t last long. There are battles ahead that bear stench of burning spacecraft and death. But they aren’t fighting just yet.

They’re on a grassy shore, its gentle slope covered by wave upon wave of blue-green stems whispering to the wind. Ben’s head is in Rey’s lap, and she’s playing with his hair, braiding blades of grass into long strands.

“You need a haircut.”

Ben hums in acknowledgement, too drowsy and too happy to open his eyes, lest the moment shatters. Rey has a point, though; the haircut is long overdue. He hasn’t bothered for, what, a year? Had they been apart for an entire year…? But not anymore. They’re on the same side now, together, and he might as well cut his hair.

“Will you help me?” Ben peeks through his eyelashes, a slow smile creeping on his face from somewhere deep within his chest.

Rey laughs. “I will, but I can’t promise it’ll turn out pretty. I’m only used to chopping my own hair off with rusty scissors.” She runs her fingers through his mane again. “Oh, you have a gray hair.”

“What? Where?! Pull it out, pull it out!” Ben frowns dramatically, hands flailing. With his disturbing fondness of poor life choices, it’s a miracle he isn’t half-gray already. Then, “Ouch!”

“You asked to pull it out.” Rey scrunches her nose playfully, but her expression becomes very soft when she catches his gaze. “Ben, let’s grow old together. Promise me that we will.” She says it very quietly, yet the words reverberate through his soul.

“I promise.” Ben reaches up, tangles his own fingers in the single bun on the back of Rey’s head, and pulls her down so that their foreheads met. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take prompts! :D Send them my way and get a ficlet.  
> (No rape or MCD tho; smutty stuff is okay but I can't promise I'll pull off kinky or very explicit one.)


	4. Letting go (is not necessarily a virtue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU, post-breakup, HEA.

There was the sound of running water; then the bathroom door creaked, and floor planks in the hallway groaned under Ben’s heavy steps. Through the haze of sleep, some part of Rey’s consciousness noted that the steps were heading in the wrong direction, but she only got what that little fact implied when the mattress dipped under Ben’s weight.

The wrong direction. Their— _Her_ bed instead of the couch.

“Hey, what the hell?” she hissed in annoyance, now fully awake, and turned to Ben, feet tangling in the duvet.

But he, it appeared, had fallen back asleep before he even lay down. Given how inebriated Ben had been, Rey doubted he _really_ woke up to take a piss to begin with — hence the wandering. She pinched the bridge of her nose, contemplating kicking him out of bed purely out of spite, awake or not.

Yet….

She didn’t kick him out earlier, when he showed up on her doorstep drunk off his ass. She didn’t kick him out when he dropped his head on the kitchen counter, his coffee left untouched. Didn’t kick him out when he was slurring _I miss you_ s into her hair as she half-dragged him to the couch.

So why start now? Rey knew she’d likely regret it in the morning, but she always had trouble letting go, of things and people alike.

She did regret it.

Acrid, the feeling shot through Rey as Ben hastened to untangle their limbs upon waking up, rasping out apologies and not looking at her. It chased away relief that had filled the nasty cavity in her chest when she opened her eyes to the sight of Ben’s mop of hair on her pillow.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Ben sounded so panicked and so… pained. “I— Shit, Rey, I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

He was still in his jeans and t-shirt, and as he was about to stand up, Rey caught him by the belt. Ben looked from her hand to her face in confusion, finally meeting her eyes. Rey gripped his belt tighter. She had no intention of letting go.


	5. Ben Solo's heart lies beneath (his giant pecs)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Lilithsaur.
> 
> Canonverse, crack.

Rey is too late to realize the severity of her situation. 

It all starts innocently enough as she catches a glimpse of a holo emanating from Poe's personal projector; he switches it off faster than she blinks and closes the door to his quarters with a sheepish smile. Standing alone in the Resistance base's corridor, Rey turns the image of an unmistakably humanoid, bare male chest in her head. Her thoughts have nothing to do with Poe.

Rey believes she's shaken  _ it  _ off by the next day - and then she nearly causes Rose to get electrocuted while they work on the  _ Falcon _ . Instead of cutting off the voltage, Rey stares, hypnotized, at the two square-ish panels set deep in the ship's body. The panels are symmetrical, with slightly rounded corners. Glancing around like a thief, Rey splays her palm out on one of them…. Rose yelps in the distance, and the moment shatters. Rey's palm throbs as if burnt.

From there, it's nightmare. The dam is broken, Rey's suppressed memories are out, and she sees Ben Solo's naked chest  _ everywhere.  _ His wide, muscular, glistening with sweat--

She trips upon seeing a couple of flat round rocks on the ground and twists her ankle so badly she has to borrow Leia's cane for a week.

(They were giant, his pecs.)

_ Funny  _ patterns on pancakes and fried eggs make Rey drool way more than usual. Her friends notice eventually, and she panics and blurts out the first explanation that comes to her head, and then the whole base is patting her on the shoulders sympathetically because anybody could catch a parasite in such harsh conditions, there's nothing to be ashamed of, get better, Rey.

Rey wants the ground to swallow her whole. (And to touch them. The pecs plague her dreams.)

And then… she goes back to Jakku. Ben's tits aside, Rey needs to sort through all the things buried in her mind. But as she gets to Niima Outpost and is holding a portion in her trembling hand, Rey can't help but notice….

It's shaped like a man's torso.

She runs into the desert, and when she's surrounded by dunes, Rey lets out a primal scream that rips the Force-bond open.

Ben Solo turns to her. He's wearing nothing at all.


	6. Dead ships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canonverse, angst. Based on the theory that Rey killed her parents as a child, pulling their ship from the sky with the Force.  
> TW: blood and gore.

“He lied. Kylo Ren lied to you,” Rey says into the stale silence of the room she has to herself, in the first hour she has to herself. The silence swallows the words; let it choke. Let him choke. So what if Rey remembers their grave? There are hundreds of those on Jakku! She remembers her parents flying away just as vividly.

.

She won't let it go, the contradicting memories rubbing against one another as coarse sheets are rubbing against her too hot skin; the ship chases the grave, chasing sleep away. 

Rey does fall under eventually. Her sleep is fitful, restless, but it's enough for the scattered pieces to slot themselves together; the screech of metal wakes her up. 

It's horrid. Only as her friends - as Finn, and Rose, and Poe - burst through the door, weapons at the ready, does Rey realize those are her own screams.

“I pulled them from the sky,” she whispers as someone's hands are easing her back onto the lumpy mattress. 

“I pulled them from the sky,” she repeats. Her voice is so hoarse Rey fears her throat might bleed, yet she can't shut up, feverish. The truth threatens to boil her alive.

.

They don't look at her the same, her Finn, and Rose, and Poe. They'd never say it to her face, buy they are wary of what they now know she's capable of. 

Rey is wary of herself, too.

Rey is afraid.

Rey is alone.

Under the fresher's lukewarm spray, she hugs her shoulders, grazing her shoulder blades with her nails. Her hold's tightening, lest her chest cracks open, and a broken nail breaks the skin on her back.

The scratch stings. Briefly, Rey thinks about covering it in bacta. She leaves it be.

.

In a few minutes, it's red and puffy.

.

It starts to fester in a day.

.

Rey is on Jakku. She doesn't remember how she got here, buy where else would she be? Ichor trickles down her spine, mixing with sweat. Her shirt's back is crusty with it.

Dead ships lay before her; Rey giggles. If she was strong enough as a child to yank a flying shuttle to the ground and kill parents who sold her, could she drag a star destroyer to Niima Outpost and buy herself some more delusions, now? 

She plants her feet in the shifting sand and  _ pulls _ with the Force. The ships are motionless, dead. Her parents are dead. 

Rey pulls; her knees are trembling, her every muscle is; there's blood. Good blood, she tastes as it runs down her lips and chin. Bad blood, she can smell. Red goo slides all the way down to the soles of her boots and mars them and the sand, but the sand turns black.

.

Something cool is pressed to her wound, and there's a rocking motion. Rey's being carried - not quite over the shoulder; Kylo Ren's holding her as one would hold a child. 

From the corner of her eye, Rey spots red scars on his mask and turns her head away.

The sun sets over Jakku, and Rey's irises are golden with it.


	7. Caf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From twitter:   
> "New prompt: Canon-compliant coffeeshop AU. The First Order finally got a StarCaffe and the Resistance decides to infiltrate them while posing as baristas."
> 
> Crack, obviously. XD It's not exactly compliant with the prompt butttt....

A black straw sprang out from underneath the voice modulator of Kylo Ren’s mask with a metallic cling. Careful not to poke it into his cup’s lid, Kylo lowered the straw into the scalding-hot caf and made a small, _careful_ sip. A shudder ran down his spine; instead of the familiar, to-the-point bitterness of black caf, a mixture of sweet syrups filled his mouth, the taste of caf itself a distant echo in this sugary cacophony. Already knowing what he was going to find, Kylo turned the cup and craned his neck awkwardly so that his mask’s visor was level with it.

_Ben._ Written hastily with a black sharpie on the cup’s white.

He sighed, the gust of air coming out through the straw, still in the cup, rather than the voice modulator. His caf bubbled. Something was _off_ with this cafshop.

They mixed up orders for the fifth time this month, and Kylo really needed to bring this up with the management. Not today, though. He already wasted too many precious minutes of his morning standing in line, and bickering with some lowly business owner was beneath the Supreme Leader of the First Order anyway. Pushing the cafshop door open, Ben made a long sip. A shudder ran down his spine.


	8. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canonverse, TRoS end speculation, angst. No, wait. ANSGT. MCD...but not quite. Don't be afraid.

Someone tried to lift her by her shoulders, earlier. Rey doesn’t know who it was; she only knows that she shoved them away, shoved them all back against the corroded walls with half a cry, half a roar, then lay down again.

They aren’t there anymore. No one is. It’s quiet; the storm has passed, and the morning is creeping down from above where layers upon layers of metal are torn open, and he is warm, still so _warm_ under her.

He’s not breathing.

Ben is no longer...there.

After awhile, Rey can hear nothing but the quiet. The thick silence where Ben’s heartbeat should be fills her ears like salt water. 

Rey stopped making noise. A string of “come back come back come back” spilling from her mouth has long morphed into an unintelligible whine, then stuck in her throat, then died. 

There’s blood on her lips.

It’s not hers.

When she feels her consciousness start fading, Rey welcomes it. She thinks, distant, that if she slips into the darkness right now, then maybe by the time he’s gone cold, she will be cold, too.

But the darkness is chased away by the familiar bluish glow blooming beside them. Rey doesn’t move. She knows in her core that if she lifts her head and sees Ben’s ghostly form…. It’s over.

But then she hears her name. It rushes in with the flow of sounds, and Rey’s head snaps up to meet Luke Skywalker’s somber gaze, his eyes even bluer in death. 

He cuts straight to the point.

“I’ll guide him home. Make sure he can stay.”

“But he’s—” Something, not quite panic, not quite hope, rises in Rey’s chest, so powerful it threatens to crack her ribs.

“There is no death,” Luke chides, “there is the Force.” With that, he’s gone.

“There is the Force,” Rey repeats, blinking at her scraped palms. “There is the Force!”

She presses her hands to Ben’s unmoving chest and wills his big stupid heart to start pumping his hot red blood again.

“There is the Force,” she grits out through her teeth, sweat gathering on her brow, her arms shaking, as she orders his flesh to knit itself back together. Her work is crude; Rey’s giving Ben more scars yet, but she doesn’t stop, never, never.

"There is the Force.” Lips to lips, filling his lungs with breath after breath after breath.

Is this enough? Is _Rey_ enough? She’s no idea, but she would scoop the well of her power dry with her palms and live unable to move a speck of dust with the Force if it meant that Ben would live.

“There is the—” 

She collapses. Back to where she was, lying prone on Ben’s chest. Her vision swims, dark on the edges; her own heart is beating in her ears like a wild, deafening drum. A lightning-like fear shoots through her: was it even real? 

Rey scrambles up to see but her whole body is shaking so badly she falls again, a half-squashed beetle, one elbow jamming into Ben’s stomach.

“Oof!”

He inhales. And coughs wetly, and inhales again. 

Slowly, Ben’s arms close around her shoulders. They breathe, breath together.


End file.
